Boyertown Bear installed at Firefly Café
Known for painting food, the artist covered Juju with images of fruits, vegetables and succulents
A new bear sculpture — covered with images of fruits, vegetables and succulents — was recently installed at Firefly Café in Boyertown.
Juju is the newest bear to be added to Boyertown’s Bear Fever, a collaborative public art project founded by artists Jane and Paul Stahl in 2003 to celebrate and beautify the Boyertown community. Their vision was to mount lifesized bear sculptures — the community’s mascot — on the streets of Boyertown.
“I want the program to provide some fun for members of the community as they hunt for bears as a family or as a group project,” Jane Stahl, Bear Fever coordinator and community relations director at Studio B, told MediaNews Group after the Prayer Bear installation in early April.
Stahl wants the Boyertown community to learn more about each of the artists and the sponsors of the bears.
“Knowing more about one another — as the Bear Fever mission states — helps to build a more cohesive community,” said Stahl. “And with the current divisiveness all over the world, the project is a symbol of folks working together to bring fun, learning and opportunities to beautify their community through artistic projects — for the good of the community.”
Firefly Café owners Loriann Wade and Michael Martinez, practicing vegans, moved from New
York City where Michael was born and raised back to Wade’s hometown of Boyertown and opened Firefly Café, a vegetarian and vegan café at 12 N. Reading Ave., in 2016. In addition, the couple runs The Loft, an AirBnB on the second floor of the café.
The owners first approached Stahl with their idea for Juju the bear for the café in 2018.
“It took us a couple of years to save the money, and then COVID happened, but five years later we